A few weeks before the launch of the Paris Olympics, the migration of the SAMU's information system to a trusted cloud has ensured greater resilience for a service that is essential to public health. This project, led by the Agence du numérique en santé (ANS) and entrusted to Thales Services Numériques for integration and Cloud Temple for hosting, is an emblematic example of the modernisation of the State's critical infrastructures. We take a look back at this successful experiment through the eyes of Laurent Joubert, Director of Operations at the ANS, and Nicolas Duffour, Director of Strategic Development at Cloud Temple.
Operated by the ANS, the SAMU IS is an ultra-critical information system that manages "15" emergency calls across France. With around 100 departmental SAMUs, the main aim of the project launched in 2016 was to offer a resilient national service and to enable mutual assistance between SAMUs, particularly for the most fragile among them. In 2022, a decision was taken to reorientate the programme towards an open platform strategy, enabling better integration with medical regulation software publishers.
Why the trusted cloud?
It is important to note that compliance with the SecNumCloud standard was not an initial requirement of the ANS. After an in-depth analysis of the specific needs of the SAMU IS, several essential criteria were identified," explains Laurent Joubert. Our priorities were service availability at the expected criticality level, compatibility with specific technologies such as Oracle and Genesis, and strong network latency requirements. However, at the time we chose not to restrict our choice to SecNumCloud-qualified suppliers.
By providing additional guarantees of technical and organisational security and immunity to extra-territorial laws, which are essential for the management of health data, compliance with the SecNumCloud reference framework was a major factor in favour of Cloud Temple during the evaluation of the offers. Laurent Joubert explains: "In fact, Cloud Temple was the only cloud provider able to meet our technical and security requirements, while offering an industrialised solution with a high level of flexibility and customisation.
The challenges of migration
The migration took place during the night of 22 to 23 April 2024, involving a big bang in which the first ten UASs were migrated simultaneously. This delicate operation required meticulous preparation, including performance tests, blank shutdowns and even careful monitoring of the weather. When it comes to the SAMU, degrading the service provided to the public is unthinkable," points out Laurent Joubert. A call to '15' must be able to go through, and availability must not be compromised by IS operations. In-depth collaboration between the ANS, Cloud Temple, Thales Services Numériques and SAMU teams was essential to the success of this migration.
The success of this project depends on the collective commitment of all those involved," emphasises Nicolas Duffour. We had to manage a real crisis, with a series of windows and back-up plans to ensure that the migration went ahead without any interruption to the service.
Continuing to modernise
The adoption of the trusted cloud opens up a wide range of possibilities for the SAMU's IS. As the other regional SAMUs migrate to the Temple Cloud infrastructure, the ANS plans to strengthen the system's resilience, integrate new modules and explore the possibilities offered by artificial intelligence to improve care coordination. Laurent Joubert explains: "We want to be as transparent as possible and make it easy for publishers to connect to our platform. This means sharing code and opening APIs.
At the same time, Cloud Temple is continuing to strengthen its range of services to support its customers' digital transformation. Nicolas Duffour announces: "In mid-June, we will be opening the PaaS OpenShiftwhich will enable the development of native cloud services, and the S3 object storageSecNumCloud qualified. These new functional building blocks will give our customers the flexibility and performance they need to accelerate their transformation.
The quotes from Laurent Joubert and Nicolas Duffour are taken from the round table held on 21 May 2024 at SantExpo.